Not only is the importance of having an established online presence growing more than ever, the ways in which people are now looking to search for and purchase property is changing. Meaning if your website is not being utilised to its maximum potentially hundreds or thousands of leads could be slipping through the gap!
As an Estate Agency having a fully optimised website is vital! If you don’t know the importance of having an online presence by now, where have you been for the last 10 + years?
At Property Webmasters we have seen a shift in mindset from agents worldwide who are now taking the plunge and investing in their website and are seeing immediate results in the increase of leads for their properties/services. From simple tips and tricks to updating the design and functionality, their website has and should be the backbone of their business, generating more leads than any other platform! Your website is your storefront and often the first place people will visit when looking you up.
When it comes to optimising your website for maximum lead generation, it is important to take in every step of the funnel, from live chats on your homepage to marketing guides and newsletter sign-ups. Giving your website visitors multiple ways to enquire or get in touch is key to generating more leads through your website.
If your website isn’t generating the enquiries you desire, this could be down to a number of things between website design and marketing, however, within this guide we will demonstrate 6 ways of immediately capturing more data and enquiries from your current website…
If a visitor views your website and sees that they first have to enter data they don’t have or don’t feel comfortable sharing to be able to enquire, it could instantly put them off and lead to them exiting off your site. When optimising your site for lead generation it is important to take into consideration a variety of needs and wants and to not stick to one means of data capture.
Different audiences can react differently to different means of data capture, for example, first time visitors to your site are less likely to leave their details for a callback than they are to leave their details for a newsletter sign up. Having different options of CTAs and data capture across your website is key to gaining more leads at every stage of the customer journey.
Ensuring your audience is comfortable in enquiring and ensuring there is always a way your audience can get in touch with you is what can put you ahead of others within the industry!
Live chats are a great way to ensure that you reach every element of your audience and is a great way to engage with those who may not feel comfortable or as eager to ring up your offices or to directly enquire straight away! A live chat allows visitors with a sense of urgency to quickly get a response and allows the instant gratification that some users desire. If you’re not making it clear on your website where visitors can enquire, Live Chats are a great feature to add to your pages to ensure you don’t miss out on potential enquiries no matter where your audience is on your site!
Ideal for lead generation, implementing pop up strategies is a must! The aim is to keep users on the website for as long as possible, after all, they cannot convert after leaving your site! We typically use this strategy for our clients, however, the messaging can be altered if there is anything in particular that your agency would like to promote/show off, such as:
Promoting your USPS is typically something estate agencies should promote, what makes you different to other agents in your area? What makes you stand out? You can use this pop-up strategy to offer something that none of your competitors has even thought of. How about localised stats about the property market within your target areas? That would be the perfect way to gain someone’s attention!
Essential for lead generation, clear CTA’s are the key to getting users to enquire through your website. Acting as a signpost that lets the user know what to do next, by ensuring that your CTA’s are clear and simple can potentially be what’s standing between you and potentially hundreds of qualified leads!
Arguably the most important part of your website/form, by ensuring that you use a variety of different clear CTAs, it makes it a lot easier for not only a user to enquire but also for you to gather data on your audience. According to Hubspot, personalised CTAS perform 202% better than basic CTAs, creating a great opportunity for retargeting those previous website visitors, by creating a more personalised experience for the user.
Keeping it clear and simple allows for the user to know exactly what is coming next as well as motivating them to take the next steps to become a potential client and is a staple when it comes to generating more leads for your website.
Focusing on content that actually matters and makes an impact on a user’s decision making is essential to drive leads. It is also an extremely easy way of generating leads; however, it can require time and planning. But if you’re not ready to put in any work to provide in-depth guides that can help you drive leads, you will be missing out.
One of our favourite examples of great downloadable content is localised property market stats and figures. Prove you’re an expert in your local area, pull together a well-designed PDF full of the latest figures and facts on your target market. These stats could include the average age of occupants, the typical profile of employment, property that has recently been let, average prices for property within their area etc.
This will allow you to gain the interest of your audiences. Hiding the articles behind a data capture form can see your agency capture the name, email address and phone number of interested parties.
One of the easiest ways to generate more leads for your agency is to include a clear newsletter sign up form around your website. Including newsletter signup to build a database for the website can be an excellent and ‘softer’ way of attracting visitors back to the website and keeping them up to date with the latest information surrounding the business. Some users of your website may not have the intent right there and then to enquire with you regarding your services, so this ‘softer approach allows more time within their decision process and allows you to nurture until they are ready!
This is not exclusive to estate agencies and may not be something new to you but is your business taking full advantage of everything it has to offer?
If you are paying for traffic via online advertising or if you’re working hard to rank high for your agency key terms, why do the hard part when the website is not 100% set up for success? As we have mentioned previously in this article, making your website easy to navigate with clear CTA’s should be a given!
If your agency is struggling to generate leads, why don’t you give some of the above tips a go? We have discussions constantly with agencies that are seeing a great deal of traffic enter their website but not many users are converting!
If you are interested in seeing how your branding, imagery and colour scheme could look on a new AgentPlus website solution from us here at Property Webmasters, how about you take up the opportunity to receive a free website mock-up? Give us 48 hours and we will return you a fully functioning mock-up for you to take a look at, with all of your assets. Find out more here!
By Ben Spowart
By Ben Spowart
By James Sheldon